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After such a long blog break, it’s hard to get back into a rhythm of blogging. So I thought it would be best to blog as much as possible to keep me going and make it a new (old) habit. What would be better than to make it into a challenge:

“Blog at least one photo and one sentence everyday.”

I hope, this little challenge keeps me sane in this messy time of year, my creativity rising and my focus on the good things.

So I’ll be following her daily prompts and will post it on my old IG account @momentstolivefor. I lost interest in it some time ago and started new at @sabinecrafts with simply crafty posts. Now I’m concentrating my personal life and daily moments again on @momentstolivefor. I’m really looking forward to this fresh start and new possibilities.

When I reread my blog lately the posts that really got to me and triggered emotions, were not the ones planed and worked on the longest, but the little ones from the August Break. I know, they are not the ones you’re most interested in, because they hold no real value or information for you, but I love them, because the images hold memories and feelings. So look forward to some emotional, more personal photos from my life. A little December documentary.

Last weekend I stumbled over an unfinished project, a white mug I wanted to paint for 6 months. Then another, a minialbum I haven’t finished yet for 8 month. And another… I started to see them everywhere, those little UFOs (un-finished objects). Thankfully we had just bought a big box, so I began to collect every UFO in it. The box filled up so very fast – in only ten minutes it was full to the brim and I still hadn’t dug deeper into the craft boxes, where some projects were still hidden.

Those mugs and plates and bags and wooden boxes and minialbums and… and… and… you know these crafty projects you see in the shop and know you want to do these too. All those little craft projects I buy on the go, because I simply fall for them and think, they would look lovely in our home.

You buy the tools and material, bring them home, maybe leave them on your workplace for a few days, but then other projects are back in focus and the new project is left alone on the shelf or in a box with the other 100 lonely projects. And that’s it. From time to time you come across them and think: ‚Oh yes, I wanted to do this sometime. But not now, maybe…“ And then it’s back in the box forgotten till you open it the next time. You know, what I mean, right? It’s time to bring these UFOs back to daylight, out in the open and finally finish them. Here’s what I did to organize my UFOs:

Collect them in a big box or on the floor. Get every little project out in the open, so you can see it and have an overview about everything.

Write a list or take a photo of every project like I did. And I mean every single one. Not just write down ‚paint mugs‘ but instead make it a point to document every single mug like ‚paint mug no.1‘. This way the points on the list are not too overwhelming, the steps are much smaller and can get checked off much faster. Therefore you will see the process more clearly and stay motivated to finish one UFO after another.

Some projects will be just one step, like folding an origami bow. But others will consist of two or more steps to finish, like choosing a quote for a mug, sketch it onto the mug, paint it and then burn it in the oven. Or if you want to paint some wooden boxes with stain, you need to grind them first, before you can paint them. The action steps will make it easier to see, which steps you can summarize for different projects and therefore will be faster to do together. And if you style the action steps like a checklist, you can cross those steps off of several single projects at once and see your process, even when you don’t finish one project right away.

Choose one project and simply finish it. Maybe you choose one project first, that’s fast to finish. Therefore you feel empowered and motivated to do more and don’t get stuck at the first project, because it will be so hard to get done.

I took the time to take a photo of every UFO and made a collage to have all together. I was bumbed, when I counted all – there are 50 UFOs! Not to mention all the photos that wait to be put in minialbums and Project Life pages. It’s time to do something about this situation. Therefore I will print this photo collage of all UFOs and hang them next to my desk, so I will see everyday what I can work on and don’t forget about them. Another benefit is the consciousness, that I shouldn’t buy any new material and tools since I already have enough things at home to keep my hands and my creative mind busy. The plan is to cross every photo off the collage, when I finish it – like a to do list with pictures.

It’s about half time (164 days) since I started this challenge. Unbelievable, but I made it to here. I didn’t quit. I had some slips through this time, but thanks to my rule of catching-up, I didn’t stop and have everyday filled with a little bit of crafting. If you don’t know, what I’m talking about… in September 2014 I started a challenge called #365craftingtime. The challenge is to craft everyday and if it’s just sticking some washi tape on an envelope or sorting through photos. The main goal is to make something with your hands. I’m a programmer and work entirely at the Mac everyday, so I’m happy to do something by hand in the evening. The challenge was the right way to turn this hobby into a habit.

Now it’s the most normal thing for me to keep my hands busy in the evening or sometimes even in the morning before I go to work. I lerned a lot in the past 164 days. For example origami figures are perfect for this challenge. They are mostly quick to make, you have something to decorate your home with and see your process. The same is it with greeting cards. Fast to make, something to show and a gift for friends and family. Three things at once. Simply perfect. More than that, those little and bigger projects triggered my creativity in other parts of my life too, like at work and in cooking. And my creativity isn’t fading, instead it is growing even more. I’m totally in crafting mood, like you can see in my post about my crafty year 2015.

The only thing that’s a little bit hard at the moment is documenting the action everyday. In the last weeks I so often forgot about taking a photo, when I was crafting. So I had to fake it later. Even harder is to post it on the tumblr blog everyday. I’m so behind with it at the moment, therefore it’s my goal to create a new routine around it. I was so sad to see the Everest app shutting down. It was the perfect app to document the challenge, because you could set a date for every post and even choose a date way back. On tumblr I have to post it in the right order, when I want the posts to appear chronically. But I still love the Collect app. It’s so magnificent to see every month filled with crafty pictures.

When I started the challenge in September, some bloggers joined in on this challenge immidiately, some did it later and we are getting more everyday. On Instagram look for the tag #365craftingtime. There are so many creative, fabulous photos from everyone. When I wrote to some of the first participants, who started along with me, and asked them to share their experiences with me and my readers, they were in immidiately. I’m so happy to present you four inspiring ladies and what they lerned while working on this challenge.

“As an artsy fartsy person, discovering the #365craftingtime challenge was indeed a pleasure, because I get to do what I want which is paper crafting and paper quilling and at the same time I could share the things that I do to the world.

As the days go by, it gets harder to think of ideas on which projects to do because it is a daily photo challenge and we all know that artists sometimes have the trouble of coming up with a new idea. In order for me not to loose ideas, I have to do tons of research in pinterest, behance and Instagram, I also look around me and it would even surprise me that I could come up with something by just looking at different angles. The pleasure of crafting kept me going, but I temporarily had to stop because of some personal matters like moving from the Philippines to the United States of America, imagine that huge change in my life. I certainly learned a lot of things and the most important is patience and originality. If a crafter does not possess those qualities, they would definitely not achieve success. Documenting my process is very simple, I first do my crafty project and then I take a picture of it and upload it in Instagram, just as simple as that.”

“When Sabine announced this challenge back in September it could not have come at a better time for me. I was in one of those ‘everyones stuff is better than mine and I have nothing to make’ funks. Truly, this project pulled me out of the trenches.

I am using the collect app to add a quick photo everyday of what I create and am so proud to say that I have not missed a single day! This is the most committed to a project Ive ever been and what makes it possible is the flexibility. I can count anything I want to count as a creative act each day. We travel a lot, so I cant create while Im traveling (for the most part) and that is actually a great thing for me! Im able to break off the thoughts of ‘only paper and glue mean you are creating’. I will give myself a photography challenge or will collect things or will just be intentional about taking photos to use in a project back home and count those photos as my daily creating. When I am home, sometimes I will spend hours editing photos for the blog, as much as I would rather be making with my hands, this is still an integral part of the creating process for me, so it counts. Sometimes, something as simple as cooking something new for dinner gets counted.

Creating and making are a part of all of our daily lives, if only you choose to acknowledge it. For the most part though, I do find time to actually sit down in my craft space, use my hands and make. Even if I have no direction, I find myself wandering into my craft room and will wake up in a daze not knowing why Im there. The answer is: Im there because this has become such an established habit for me that my body literally gravitates towards that room after dinner without my brain telling it too. Im in love with this. Not only do I plan to finish this project strong, but I plan to allow my mind, body and hands to continue pulling me to my workspace daily, for forever.

If you want to participate in a project like this, but aren’t sure you have the commitment, my advice is to set simple and flexible goals. Commit to something like working on a project (not finishing) for 10 minutes a day or taking a photo of something colorful everyday. Give yourself a direction, but not strict boundaries. The accountability of the Collect app has been wonderful for me. It gives me a notification around 6pm, which is when I normally start creating. So If I have forgotten, I am reminded to either start or to stop and take a quick photo. The photos are not important to me, its the accountability and the documenting that I have done my task for that day. So, find what works for you and dont stop until it becomes part of who you are!”

“I first heard about #365craftingtime on Instagram. I love painting and drawing and had been wanting to find a way to commit to it every day for a while so this project was perfect. At first I thought it would be an easy challenge, but we all have days where other things take priority and we just can’t spend the time painting or drawing or being creative. In the beginning I was motivated because I was seeing a lot of posts showcasing amazing creations on Instagram, but as I suspected, other things got in the way and I ended up forgetting all about the project – until the new year. I thought it was as good a time as ever to start again, and I was on holidays from work so had more time to commit. I have learnt that for me to succeed with this project I need to keep it simple – so I have taken a calendar and diary art journal approach – small entries shouldn’t be hard to complete even when life gets busy. I really like sharing my progress via Instagram and my blog. I have received some really lovely feedback recently which motivates me to keep going.

I love that there are no real rules for 365 Crafting Time. It gives me the freedom to decide exactly what I want to create on any given day. I think rules would make it a bit more difficult for me to commit to. I often find that rules make me feel stressed and blocked creatively. That is why I love this project so much just the way it is.

Thanks Sabine for motivating and inspiring me with this project – being creative is very therapeutic and is the perfect way for me to end my day.”

“I started this challenge, because I love to craft and I don’t do it enough. This was a way to push myself to create more and to try new things! I add it to my to do list every day to remind me. I’ve learned to push myself to try something new, and I’ve learned to be confident enough to share my creations – people are generally always supportive, even when what I’ve made/painted doesn’t look fantastic! To make the process easier for me, I added a rule that baking can be a part of my Crafting Time. I love to bake and it is something that I don’t do enough.

What keeps me going? The fun of it! I love crafting and it is so satisfying. Even if some days I just make an envelope, stick washi tape to something, or even if I totally ruin whatever it was I was making it still feels good.

I think I am doing quite well. I’ve missed a few days here and there, generally only because I was out all day having fun so that is totally fine with me. I show my creations each day on instagram and use the Collect app that Sabine recommended! It gives me a little reminder each night if I haven’t added the photo that day.”

It’s so inspiring to read about everyone’s experiences and how these lovely, creative ladies adapted the rules to fit their routines. Thank you, ladies, for sharing your thoughts with us.

I’m looking forward to the second half a year of crafting. If you feel inspired, you are welcome to join us. Simply use the tag #365craftingtime on Instagram, when you share your daily crafty projects. Have fun! 🙂

Around Christmas I cruised through my Pinterest boards for new craft ideas I definitely want to make this year. I even started a new board to collect those project ideas and suddenly I noticed, that I could collect without much effort 53 projects I really want to come to life. And within an instant the new project was born: 53 craft projects in 2015.

It’s 53 crafty projects because there are 53 weeks this year and one project per week will be definitely manageable. That doesn’t mean, I have to do one every week. I can do two or three a week, if I have the time and motivation to. Thus there can be weeks without one project finished, that will foreseeable be the case around Christmas for example.

It’s an addition to my #365craftingtime project, that is still running. I’m at the moment a little behind with posting, but the challenge is still on. And thanks to my catching up-rule, I haven’t lost one day since the start of the project. The main idea with the new project is to document the process. The documentation was the main reason to name it a project and choose concrete tasks. I want to focus on these little craft projects, because they are important to me. Some because I just need them to decorate our home or to progress with other projects like Project Life. Others are simply on the list to lern something new like sewing. Therefore I don’t have simply „lern to sew“ on my bucket list for this year, but a concrete project that has a start and end point. “Lern to sew” is on my list for years, so I hope this new project will do the trick.

On this page you find an overview about all 53 projects I want to do. As soon as I finish one, I exchange the text picture with a photo of the finished project like I did already with number #10 („Design a calendar“). I hope at the end of the year, this page will be all colorful instead of grey and white, filled with wonderful craft projects.

Do you plan something similiar this year? Maybe we can motivate each other.

This weekend I had endless time for crafting. On Monday morning I woke up, feeling happy, calm and balanced. The activity of crafting was not the only factor for my happiness, but it was a big one. When I sat at the kitchen table and looked at my photos from my one year of cups-challenge, the wish in me grow, to take on a new challenge. I love looking back at these photos, knowing what I’ve accomplished going through with it for a whole year and lerning so much about photography, light and composition. So I decided to start a new 365 days challenge: I want to craft everyday for one whole year.

These are the rules:

1. Craft everyday.

It doesn’t have to be a whole new project everyday, it’s enough, if I just put some washi tape stripes as embellishment on an envelope. The important thing is, to sit down and do something creative with my hands.

2. Document everyday.

To be accountable I will document every little crafty thing with a photo and collect them in the fabulous app ‘Collect‘. There I have the perfect overview above all days and what I’ve created, because it shows one photo every day. At the end I can print every photo with date and text like you can see it here. There’s an export function to save these calendar cards from this app.

Above that, I will post the photo to Instagram and a new tumblr blog I created for this purpose. That way I have every photo in one gallery for everyone to see and follow. That’s another beauty of the Collect app: you can share the photo and text directly with Instagram or some other Social Medias or save them in your Dropbox.

3. There will be some days…

…that I don’t find the time to craft, not even a little thing. By that I don’t mean regular days, being stressed from work or full with appointments. I mean days like Christmas or birthdays, when I enjoy time with friends and family and nothing more. This is one from the lessons I lerned from my cup-challenge. Therefore I give myself permission to pause my challenge on these days, but I will have to craft two things instead of one the following day. As said before, it doesn’t have to be something big.

Wanna join me?

I would be delighted, if you join me on this exciting journey. You can simply post your photos on Instagram with the hashtag #365craftingtime. That’s all.

If you want to announce the start of your personal journey, you can use the cover photo from me or create your own.

If you want to be able to show everything you created with one hashtag, maybe you can use the official hashtag plus your name, f.e. #365craftingtimesabine or something similar.

Do you have any questions? Feel free to contact me via email (blog@momentstolivefor.com) or Instagram or just leave a comment here.

So excited for this new adventure: inspired by the e-courses of A Beautiful Mess (52 Weeks of Art Journaling and their old course Art Journal All Year, no longer available), the sweet and ever inspiring Caylee and Lauren started a crafty challenge – an art journal challenge, named Get Messy. Since I’ve took the old course too and am always open to a good challenge, I’m so happy to join them on their journey. So every Thursday we will post pages from our art journals.

I created these pages last year in anticipation of our move to Berlin. Most of the time I use magazine pages as background or center piece and lay the layout around it. But that’s mostly the lazy way. On good days with time and motivation I design my own background and do more complicated layouts.

PS: Originally I wanted to show you some other pages from my art journal, but I started to take photos from these pages and then my camera broke. Yep, in the middle of the photoshooting suddenly a black bar appeared on all of my photos. As always, when you really need to use something, it breaks down in exactly that moment. But I’m not really shocked. I’ve expected this to happen for some time now, because I had problems with the camera from time to time. It’s already five years old and I’ve took a lot, lot, lot of photos with it. So it’s not unusual, but naturally annoying. Hopefully I get the camera fixed soon or buy maybe a new one?

It all began a week ago, when I started to sort through my Project Life cards and saw many that I didn’t like as much as others and that just don’t work for me. So I gathered these cards and put them aside. Then I stumbled about the new e-course of A Beautiful Mess and Elise Blaha “Use your stash“. It’s about not just collecting beautiful crafty papers and embellishments and being too afraid to use them, but think of ways to really use them up in craft projects. And more than that get rid of those things, that don’t work for you.

Perfect timing. Because of this course and the drive to reduce my stuff, I sorted through all my crafty stuff and just kept those papers, stickers, stamps and tapes, that speak to me and make me think of new layouts and ideas. The rest sits in a box and awaits my judgement, what I will do with it. I gave half of it to a friend, who crafts as well and will make good use of it. The other things still wait.

On this weekend the mentioned friend and her family visited. We had a fun time doing sightseeing in Berlin. And at the end my friend and I went to two scrapbooking shops in Berlin. When I saw all the beautiful scrapbooking things, I couldn’t resist. I bought and bought,… because both shops had so many things, that I wanted to buy online anyway. So why not now? When I came home and unpacked I was overwhelmed by the amount of things. This was definitely not my plan, to buy as much as I just had sorted out.

When I read this post from Sandra and her challenge to scrapbook 50 layouts before she will craft shop again, I knew this would be my challenge too. Not in the exact same way, because I don’t do full size layouts. But there are enough things I can think of, that will be a challenge for me in the same way. So this is my crafty challenge for the next time. I don’t know how long it will take to complete it, but that’s even more exciting, isn’t it?

The last year was exciting, stressful, amazing, stuffed with tasks, always on the move, traveling from here to there and back again. We worked a long-distance relationship, looked for our new apartment in Berlin, renovated two other apartments, prepared the big move, my boyfriend moved five (!) times last year and I managed to find a new job. Besides that we went to two weddings and two baptisms, where I became a godmother twice. Therefore there were too little time for anything else, may it be crafting, personal change or sport activities.

But now that we’ve finally settled into our new living situation and I into my new work life, it’s the perfect time to do something for body and soul – for my fitness, body feeling and personal progress. I’m someone who strives always to get better at things, may it be crafting, technical things or personal development.

So first of all I took some steps to get a better body feeling, shape up and get fitter. I gained 20 pounds last year through all this stress and mostly unhealthy food. Although I’m not a person who needs the perfect body shape, I just felt uncomfortable with all this additional weight and fat and was somehow much lazier.

It is the same for my boyfriend, so we decided to go to the gym and train together. Hopefully we can motivate each other over time, or mostly he has to motivate me, because I’m so not a gym person. I love to run in nature and through landscapes and feel the wind and sun on my face. But since the next park or the Spree river are too far away, from where we live and I don’t like to run through streets, this was the only option. The good thing is, that I now can train when I want, even when it’s dark and it rains like hell. More than that there are courses I can take like Pilates and Yoga. I liked to do exercises like these before, but can’t in our small apartment. So this solution is perfect.

To monitor my eating behavior, I started using the Lifesum app. You can fill in all food and drinks of your day everyday and your training units. Even shopping counts 😉 And you know almost exactly how much calories you ate and burned. It helps me getting a better feeling for my eating behavior, if it’s healthy or not and how to balance the (nutrition) intake. I don’t want to go on a diet. I just want to eat healthier and the right amount. If you want to, you can even monitor your body change with weight and other body measures. So this app is very helpful.

Personally I want to change some bad behaviors and get better at others. So I started the „Change“ ecourse by edX, the free course platform with lectures from first class universities and free for all that have internet. The course teaches a new way to change your behavior and it looks really interesting.

So this is the big plan for this year. I think, I have to start a new Pinterest board for motivating quotes and pictures. So I don’t give up after a few weeks. Every excuse counts to start a new board. You know, what I mean, right?! 😉

What a journey. One year, one cup a day. Almost. In some months I took only every other day a photo of a cup and never got every day of a month. But I made it to the end of 2013 with every month filled with at least 16 cup photos. I made it through the entire year with this challenge and that makes me so proud.

It’s so fun looking at all these pictures of different cups at different times of day and different places. But I still know exactly, when I took which photo, and that is so exciting. It’s a documentation of my life in cups. I can’t wait to see these pictures printed in a photobook.

All photos were taken with my iPhone 4s and edited with my favorite apps VSCOcam, Afterlight, Lo-Mob, Picfx and Snapseed. Although I have countless more apps on my iPhone, these are the ones I use regularly. I treasure the filters of VSCOcam, Lo-Mob, Picfx and Afterlight. Especially the moody ones with warm light are my favorites (for example F2 on VSCOcam). Snapseed and VSCOcam I used to change the exposure, temperature and contrast and cut the photos. Afterlight is perfect, when you want to downscale your picture before the upload. This way they are much smaller in size, load faster and don’t have the original size, so it’s somehow safe from copycats.

Using my iPhone and not my big camera made it easy to take photos and edit them on the go. I had my camera with me everywhere and everytime, ready to capture the photo of the day. And in the same move post them to Tumblr through their easy app. Because I uploaded some pictures at the same day, I could have used the calendar settings to post them on an earlier date, on the day of the photo. But I found this option too late. But maybe you can lern from this.

If you consider a 365 challenge: just do it. You will lern so much. And even if you struggle because you left out some days, don’t let yourself discourage you. This happens. Everyone has some days, when the motivation is low or there is too much going on and you just forget your project. And this can naturally go on for some days, but after that you will have time again and then just go on with your project, your challenge. Just pretend as nothing has happened and if you did the last project thing a day ago. Don’t let a pause discourage you. It’s such an amazing feeling reaching the end of the year and knowing: I did it! I made it through 365 days. That you didn’t get every day doesn’t matter.

And most important: Don’t overextend yourself. It will do nothing good, if you for example try to craft every day an entire project, if you have to give up after a few days or weeks, because you just don’t have the time. Make little steps like ‘crafting everyday’ a goal, not an entire project. Just a step further, and if it’s just a small one, like folding three corners of an origami star or just one origami figure or preparing the background of a picture. Every step, and if it’s this small, counts as crafting.

Hopefully you are inspired and motivated to make your own 365 challenge. I loved mine and will always be happy, when I’ll look at these photos and think about what I’ve accomplished.

It’s been six months since I’ve started this challenge… and I’m still on it – half time. Six more months and 184 photos to go. And I’m proud of it. I’m proud, that I didn’t stop altogether. My feelings haven’t changed since I’ve wrote this post in January about this photo project.

Of course there are times, when I’m just not in the mood. But then I post four or five photos at once a few days later. I don’t manage to take one photo every day, but for me the important thing is to keep going. To stay true to this challenge and make it to the end of the year with at least half of the photos, that it should be.

It’s such a cool project, because I can remember every moment, when I took one of the photos. I remember, what happened that day and in this moment and where I was, when I drank that cup of coffee or tea.

The only camera I use for this photo project is my iPhone 4S camera. It’s simple and handy, and I have it always with me. At the moment I try some camera apps, instead of the normal iPhone camera. My favorite camera apps so far are Camera+, VSCOcam and Gorillacam, because you can set the focus and exposure onto two different points in your picture or play with timelapse and self timer.

It’s fun to play with different filters and photo editing apps, to give every photo his own style and feeling. Most of the time I work with Afterlight and Pixlr. I love both filter sets. Additionally I’m very fond of the bokeh in Pixlr and use Afterlight to resize the photos, before I upload them to tumblr.

I can’t wait to see these photos printed in a book. Yes, there will be a photobook at the end of the year, showing every single photo. Don’t know yet, how the layout will look like and if every photo will be displayed in the same size. But I definitely want to print them, as a review of the year.

So, now I’m off to editing and posting another photo of my cup of coffee today. If you want to follow me, you find my project blog here: one year of cups.